Smartwatches as Medical Devices

Smartwatches as Medical Devices

The Apple Watch might be the most boring thing that Apple has ever made, but the grand plan for it, and smart watches, in general, isn’t boring at all. More than anything, these glorified messaging machines might save our lives one day. The Kardiaband is an add-on that can detect an abnormal heart rate. What’s more, a UCSF study found that Apple’s built-in heart monitor could detect an abnormal heart rate with 97 percent accuracy when an AI-based algorithm called Deep Heart was used in conjunction with the device. The same team behind that study later found that the Apple Watch-Deep Heart combo could detect sleep apnea with 90 percent accuracy, and hypertension with 82 percent accuracy. Both of those conditions are quite a chore to detect with the current methods.